Today I learned two brothers set out to find the sea route to China 201 years before Columbus. Not that I figured Columbus was first but two centuries is a healthy head start. The Vivaldi brothers were “lavishly equipped” in 1291, then disappeared. It was the spice trade much later that got the sea lanes open again, and European ship design allowed nothing places like Portugal and Holland to get a stranglehold on the trade. It was the invention of cannons that fired through ports in the ship’s hull that made the difference, since until then battles were won by the Roman method of ramming the other guy.
A not-so-lavish trip by Amtrak to Atlanta, GA, costs $427.50 round trip of 1,300 road miles. I know, that’s nuts Amtrak. The very people who might ride the train to save money are the ones least likely to have that kind of cash or credit. And compared to the sidecar, Amtrak costs more than the entire food, gas, and accommodation for five days. I’ve learned to include an extra day for side trips, but still it is uncanny that Amtrak should balloon the prices just when I started to take them seriously. The Amtrak makes Atlanta a trip of 2,837 miles via DC, so I may consider them for different reasons.
Another pitfall I’d like to see cleaned up is the huge discrepancy between advertised motel rates and what you pay. The difference in Naples, FL, averages over 50%. I don’t like liars. For instance, I know the Best Western in that town says $47.20, but they don’t have any of those rooms “available” beside their empty parking lot. Their cheapest room is $90 plus tax. I, for one, cannot think of a single legitimate reason why anyone would travel to Naples, FL, to stay in a featureless hotel on a highway eight miles from the nearest beach. Can you? I said “legitimate”.
This led me to peer deeper into Naples, for it was once a primo destination. Like Miami, there are some used-to-be fancy hotels on the waterfront. Let’s look at the Ritz (Ritz-Carlton). (Presidential suite, $3,500 per night, by credit card only.) Kudos to the Ritz for openly stating their rates, which begin at $329 per night, no extra charge for a second person, and those rooms are nearly always “available”.There appears to be a consortium of manufacturer’s attempting to license of limit 3D printer technology. They focus on the object being created as necessarily being computer files, which are copyrightable. But this fools nobody. The technology is “disruptive” in that you could just scan anything you want. Printers and copiers were also disruptive and changed the world. It may be a wise move to purchase a 3D printer before the powers that be put any “walled garden” laws in place.
Visit Thingiverse even if you do nothing else today. You may want to build a library of files before they begin to contain code you didn’t ask for. Remember, it was record manufacturers who shut down file sharing, not the artists whose music was being pirated. Record labels wanted to sell CD “albums” while people wanted single tracks. The people lost.
Then, there was the storm, not like the storms generally nearby. The swirling pinwheel arms of a hurricane bring sunshine, you park your truck, have a beer, wait it out. Until anything like today. Four hours of downpour is not usual, and six hours is a disaster, and anything later you get flooded out. I barely made it home to where I am a foot higher above sea level. What a storm!
ADDENDUM
Silver is vastly undervalued and I don’t know why. A review of silver was due June 7th, but I was preoccupied with the sidecar and getting to Colorado. Silver should be selling for $110 per ounce, where it is currently at $34. Here are the Eight Commandments of Buying Silver.
1. If you can’t pick it up it you don’t own it.
2. Have your own secret storehouse.
3. Avoid high premium bullion or coins.
4. Silver is preferable to gold.
5. Know your dealer but only on a first-name basis.
6. Buy smaller weights to sell without attracting attention.
7. Stay away from buying clubs, stay solitary.
8. Keep accurate but encrypted records offsite.
These rules are based on my empirical experience. The banking system and paper money is in a crisis situation, frankly, other than total public apathy, I can’t figure what has propped it up for so long. A nickel chocolate bar now costs $1.89 and the masses haven’t clued in something is terribly wrong with that. Technically, inflation is far worse because increased production efficiency has made most articles cheaper to produce, meaning even with inflation, prices should have gone down.
There is about 19 times more silver than gold in the ground and it is mined in about that ratio. I use but do not worship the gold/silver ratio prior to 1900, when the last real metal standards existed. I’m saying since then, it has all been manipulation. (The 300+ year ratio of gold to silver is 16.13113:1, and that is why silver should cost $110 per ounce. But I don’t care about that, I only care that when gold goes up, so does silver.)
This does not mean I recommend silver as an investment. What I want is the price of silver to bump like it did in the 80s (the Hunt Bros.) for that week where one can sell out and buy long-term assets before prices catch up. I never intend to become a “silver dealer”. I am quite aware a better investment since 2003 would have been cartons of smokes. But the fact is money is going to collapse in our lifetimes and those who are not prepared will suffer.
As I’ve said before, a decent house should cost around a thousand ounces of silver. That means houses are overpriced, or as I suspect, silver is the opposite. But I’m speculating, not watching ratios. I’m not counting on normalcy, rather a public panic for silver. My entire scheme is to buy a house for a very tiny investment in labor and research compared to the other man’s 30-year mortgage. When the economy collapses, and it will, just like the housing market did when everybody said it couldn’t, I won’t get rich. But I sure won’t be wiped out, either.
When do I expect this to happen? Between now and the end of 2013. That is when around 21% of all US debts mature (are slated to be repaid). There is only one place left in the world where anybody of any status, opinion, or education can get that much money—the Federal printing presses. Read my lips, there is a tidal wave of worthless paper heading right this direction. Silver will make excellent ballast.
How much am I guessing? On the prices, totally. On human nature, hardly at all. When a single currency implodes, the ripple will be planet-wide. Thousands of marginal minds will flock to gold, only to find at up to $5,000 per ounce, gold is out of their reach—plus the fools have given up their right to spend that much without reporting the transaction. There is constant talk of the gold to silver ratio, but you know, I don’t care what that ratio is. Why? Because regardless of that ratio, gold and silver prices are inextricably linked somehow and that is all I need.
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